Pardon Our Overcrowded Prisons
There are currently about 17,200 students attending UC Santa Cruz. If our university was representative of the total American population, 120 of our peers would currently be behind bars, as on average 1 out of every 143 Americans is currently incarcerated. The country that likes to refer to itself as “the home of the free” in fact currently houses more than 2.2 million inmates — a quarter of the world’s total prison population.
Jail Expansion Would Be Step in Wrong Direction
The United States accounts for roughly 5 percent of the world’s total population, but 25 percent of its total prisoners. This is the net effect of policies that bestow the U.S. with the dubious honor of having the world’s highest rate of incarceration. The expansive…